19 April 1912: Legislating Lifeboats "might save many others"

On this day in 1912, as Congress began its official inquiry into the Titanic disaster, the Athens Banner editorial staff came out in favor of lifeboat legislation:

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Senator William Alden Smith of Michigan began to subpoena White Star Line executives and surviving crew members the day the Carpathia docked in New York with the survivors of the disaster. He would spend six weeks on the investigation, and regulations involving lifeboats, ship construction, ice monitoring, and the Radio Act of 1912 were the result. Similar regulations were passed by Great Britain, and later other nations around the world.




Learn More:

• Athens Banner, Apr. 1912 - Jun. 1912 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Historic Newspaper Archive collection in the Digital Library of Georgia.
• Building the Titanic: An Epic Tale of the Creation of History's Most Famous Ocean Liner by Rod Green in the general collection.
• Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic by Steven Biel in the general collection.
• Titanic Legacy: Disaster as Media Event and Myth by Paul Heyer in the general collection.
• Her Name, Titanic: The Untold Story of the Sinking and Finding of the Unsinkable Ship by Charles Pellegrino in the general collection.
• Lost Voices from the Titanic: The Definitive Oral History by Nick Barratt in the general collection.
• Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters by Violet Jessop in the general collection.
• Titanic: 100 Years on the National Georgraphic website.

5 March 1904: Late Notice of First Marconigram to Athens

On this day in 1904, the Athens Banner announced that unbeknownst to anyone, the first wireless Marconigram was sent to Athens several days earlier by Miss Mildred Rutherford, who did not want her relatives to worry that her ship was running late. 


Alas, the headline was misplaced, so while the story appeared in the first column of the front page on March 5th, the headline was placed over the obituary of Presbyterian minister and 1851 University of Georgia graduate Dr. R. Q. Mallard in New Orleans.

Miss Mildred Lewis Rutherford, aka "Miss Mille," taught literature, history, and Bible studies at the Lucy Cobb Institute from 1880 to 1928, serving as principal from 1880 to 1895, and as president from 1917-1922.  

Guglielmo Marconi would share the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 with German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun "in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy."


Learn More:

• Athens Banner, Feb. 1904 - Nov. 1905 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Thunderstruck by Erik Larsen in the general collection.
• Marconi and Tesla: Pioneers of Radio Communication by Tim O'Shei via PINES.
• Guglielmo Marconi biography on the Nobel Prize website.
• Physics in the Twentieth Century by Curt Suplee in the general collection.
• A Century of Radio website by the BBC.
• The Marconi Centre website.
• My Father Marconi by Degna Marconi via PINES.
• Georgia Women: Their Lives and Times, edited by Ann Short Chirhart and Betty Wood in the Heritage collection.
• Higher Education for Women in the South: A History of Lucy Cobb Institute, 1858-1994 by Phinizy Spalding.

28 August 1987: WUGA Brings Public Radio to Athens

On this day in 1987, after several delays, Athens gained her own public radio station, WUGA. The station began broadcasting at 6:00am with National Public Radio's Morning Edition. The Athens Observer urged people to listen to hear something "delightfully different."


The establishment of a public radio station in Athens took years of planning, and by the mid-1980s had become an issue of faculty recruitment for the University of Georgia. The Georgia Center of Education had always intended to have a radio station, and in the mid-1980s, grants for the purpose of addressing this need. The work in Athens coincided with the creation of Peach State Public Radio in 1985, now part of Georgia Public Broadcasting.


The station broadcast at 3,000 watts on 91.7 FM. It now broadcasts at 6,000 watts, and has a coverage area  that includes Elberton, Gainesville, Lawrenceville, Eatonton, Madison, Monroe, and Washington, Georgia. The added translator at 97.9 FM that broadcasts from the University of Georgia campus has a range of only about seven miles, and helps with reception in the western part of Athens where interference from Atlanta radio stations had been an occasional issue.


Since its creation, WUGA has consistently been honored for their local coverage of the Athens area. This spring, News Director Mary Kay Mitchell was awarded for "Best General Reporting" in the radio category by the Georgia Associated Press Association; the station won five other awards, as well: second place awards for "Best Series Reporting," "Best Use of Sound," and "Best Feature." 


WUGA now offers more local programming, such as African Perspectives, Just Off the Radar, Night Music, and Athens News Matters,  along with national programs from NPR and PRI, and international programming, such as BBC's The Changing World and World Service news. The station consistently wins "Best Radio Station" polls in the Athens area.



Learn More:

• Athens Observer, Apr. 1987 - Oct. 1987 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• Athens Banner-Herald, August 16 - September 15, 1987 on Microfilm in the Heritage collection.
• WUGA Weekly Schedule on the WUGA website.
• The Sound and the Story: NPR and the Art of Radio by Thomas Looker in the general collection.
• This is NPR by Cokie Roberts in the general collection.
• The NPR Classical Music Companion by Miles Hoffman in the Reference collection.
• Nothing with Strings: NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories by Bailey White in the fiction collection.
• Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Just for Laughs, 18 Interviews with Stars of Comedy in the CD collection.
• Car Talk: Why You Should Never Listen to Your Father When It Comes to Cars in the CD collection.
• NPR Curious Listener's Guide to American Folk Music in the CD collection.
• NPR's Funniest Driveway Moments in the CD collection.

29 March 1941: The First Peabody Awards Are Presented

On this day in 1941, the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady School of Journalism distributed the first George Foster Peabody Awards at a luncheon at the Commodore Hotel in New York City. There were five awards presented for work done in 1940:

• CBS Radio for Public Service by a Network
• Elmer Davis of CBS Radio for Best Reporting of the News
• KFRU Radio of Columbia, Missouri, for Public Service by a Small Station
• WGAR Radio of Cleveland, Ohio, for Public Service by a Medium Station
• WLW Radio of Cincinnati, Ohio, for Public Service by a Large Station

There were also 15 Honorable Mentions, including one for WSB Radio of Atlanta, Georgia for "Distinguished Public Service Contributions." The practice of including Honorable Mentions ended in 1955. In 1948, when television became more prevalent in the culture, the first two awards for television were given to ABC for their Actor's Studio short-drama program, and to NBC for their Howdy Doody children's program.

The Peabody Awards were created when the Lambdin Kay, general manager of WSB, was asked in 1939 by the National Association of Broadcasters to create an award for broadcasting that was similar to the Pulitzer Awards for publications. Key contacted John E. Drewry, Dean of the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia because he believed "the award would be more credible if it were academically sanctioned and independently administered." The award was named for George Foster Peabody, a businessman, education philanthropist, and University of Georgia Trustee who had died the previous year.

Unlike the Pulitzer Awards, Peabodys do not have set categories into which a nomination must fit, but seek more generally to recognize "excellence in quality" for any form of electronic media from anywhere in the world. This fluid definition, that does emphasize public service and education as well as entertainment, allows the Award Committee freedom to be as specific or general as they want with their awards, and has allowed the Peabodys to expand as media has evolved. The first cable award came in 1981 for the HBO-Ms. magazine documentary, She’s Nobody’s Baby: The History of American Women in the 20th Century. In 2006, web entities were named as joint winners when ABCNews.com was named as one of those who helped create award-winning investigative journalism; in 2008, awards were given to the sites YouTube.com and, for their parodies of cable news, TheOnion.com.

The Committee also has the freedom to reward specific episodes or programs, as well as entire series, such as the 1972 award to ABC Television for their Afterschool Specials; to the company that creates a program, such as the 2006 award to Be Squared Productions, Inc. for Alton Brown's show on Food Network, Good Eats; to the network that airs and jointly owns the program, such as the Fox Network and Thirteen Productions for the X-Files in 1996; or to a specific episode or part of a program, such as the 1988 award for "Mr. Snow Goes to Washington" story on 60 Minutes, or the 2007 award for the Frontline episode "Cheney's Law."

While an individual might receive an award for their overall career contributions to broadcast media, such as sportscaster Jim McKay's award in 1988, another might win an award for work on a particular episode of a program, such as Rod Serling's award in 1956 for his script for Playhouse 90's production of "Requiem for a Heavyweight." Edward R. Murrow won a total of six Peabody Awards in his career, some for specific achievements, such as his 1948 award for Outstanding Reporting and Interpretation of the News, as well as a general career contribution award in 1953. Local and regional stations are often singled out for their reports and specials that serve their communities.

There are no set number of awards per year, though the total has never exceeded 36. There are approximately 1,000 entries evaluated each year, and a unanimous decision is required for an entry to receive an award. Winners are now announced at the end of March and the ceremony takes place in mid-May. This year's ceremony is May 17, 2010, at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City. Diane Sawyer is the host, the first ever repeat host for the awards.

Learn More:

• George Foster Peabody: Banker, Philanthropist, Publicist by Louise Ware in the Heritage collection.
• Welcome South, Brother: Fifty Years of Broadcasting at WSB, Atlanta, Georgia in the Heritage and general collections.
  
• On the Air: Pioneers of American Broadcasting by Amy Henderson in the general collection.
  
• A Pictorial History of the University of Georgia by F. N. Boney in the Heritage and general collections.
• Now the News: The Story of Broadcast Journalism by Edward Bliss in the general collection.
  
• The University of Georgia: A Bicentennial History 1785-1985 by Thomas G. Dyer in the Heritage and General collections.
• Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.
• The Peabody Awards Collection at UGA Libraries.
  
• Peabody Winners Book on The Peabody Awards web page.